


The Flower Child

by SteinShipping61



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Cute, Fluff, Gay Male Character, Kaiba Seto Has Issues, M/M, Possessive Atem | Yami Yuugi, Prideshipping, Religion, Religious Conflict, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Romance, Romantic Fluff, Tendershipping, Trans Character, Trans Male Character, Yaoi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-03-05
Packaged: 2020-11-26 23:22:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20938463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SteinShipping61/pseuds/SteinShipping61
Summary: Every morning, Ryou Bakura visits the sunflower field where his sister’s ashes are spread. In the 5 years he's been doing so, he's never seen another person there. Until today.Yami Yugi has always been the supportive friend, but this comes at a price. The price of taking care of himself during his own breakdowns. When things get too much to handle. The only compensation will be meeting someone even more stubborn and even more emotionally distant than himself.





	1. Meeting in a Sunflower Field

The sunflowers smile at their regular visitor. The one who arrives right on the dot every morning without a thought for how early it is, and how much chill remains in the air. Rain, snow or shine, he does his job with a smile on his face and a watering can to help the flowers grow. In return for his kindness, the sunflowers ensure they grow tall and vibrant to bring him joy with their jubilant yellows each morning. While there is an entire field to explore, their visitor always sits at one spot on the left-back corner. Or the right-front corner depending on where you stand.

Ryou smiles sadly down at the patch of soil slightly lighter than the rest. Where his sister's ashes are buried. Where the first sunflower was planted on the morn of her funeral. "Good morning," he smiles, not once feeling awkward. Talking to this field of sunflowers is the most comfortable he's ever felt, in fact. "What did I do this week? Hmm. I went to my lectures - well, some of them - I went to play table tennis with my friends..."

He happily lists off his weekly activities. He knows his sister can't hear him of course. The dead are not listening. Nobody is listening.

Except someone is.

"Your week sounds boring,"

Ryou turns to see a stranger dressed in hooded darkness. He turns to look at the new stranger, wondering how long he's been there. The stranger sits with his legs crossed, admiring his view from the comfy, moss-covered sitting place atop a fallen log. In his hand, he twirls a yellow flower on the end of a long, dark green stem. It's such a surreal experience for Ryou to see another person here after so many years of being the field's only visitor. It's almost impossible for Ryou to imagine another human here. This stranger must be a fairy or forest sprite.

He certainly looks like one.

_He's cute enough, _Ryou blushes. 

"Oh, I didn't see you there!" He smiles, the evidence of hesitation lingering in his expression and tense body language.

"You don't need to smile if you don't feel like it," the man shrugs. "Why would you do that?"

The question catches Ryou off guard and his smile droops. Even frowning, his expression is no less kind. "It's..." it sounds silly to say it out loud, this demand his mind makes of him. Screams at him. "... it's polite to smile. People like it when you smile,"

"Do you like to smile?" The stranger's tone isn't probing. And while he's scowling, it doesn't dishearten Ryou. His voice feels as if Ryou really is conversing with some lost mythical legend. Innocent and ignorant of the mind games played by us humans.

"Yes, I do!" The thought of being happy makes Ryou smile again, for real this time. His eyes light up, his pale cheeks tinted red with the action.

"That smile looks a lot better. Smiles look better when they aren't forced," His voice isn't judgemental, in fact, there isn't much beyond monotone. Perhaps amusement. Pleasant amusement lacking any malice. A childish jubilance at the strange mystical behaviour of Ryou, who thinks himself a normal boring human.

"I - thank you...?" Ryou inquires to the strange compliment. He isn't great with compliments in the first place. They make his heart race, panic building in his chest. His vision burs and for a brief second, he's as helpless as he was the day of the crash. So alone, terrified. Crushed under the pressure to act, but nothing he can do to change it. 

A compliment so unexpected gives him a reaction equally so. Instead of this panic, it makes him blush with slight shame, but the shame is endearing. Like a schoolgirl giggling at an immature topic. Not a mature man of 22 being given a compliment by a random stranger to whom he owes nothing.

No! These thoughts nothing but harmful. Blaming and belittling himself for his feelings? He thought he left that part of himself behind.

The stranger smiles too. His features are sharp and cunning, his smile equally so. Still, he looks just as kind as he would if he were smiling. He checks his watch, which is a light pastel blue that Ryou adores against the stranger's ghostly skin. 

"Ah, I must be going now!" he declares. 

The stranger springs up without touching the ground. The grass beneath him rustles. The rhythm of the grass swaying in the wind is a song of longing. The blades don't sprout up where he was sitting, now that his weight is gone. Instead, they stay in place, memorising his shape where he sat.

In contrast to the grand leap he stood with, the stranger walks up to Ryou slowly, carefully. His footsteps feel perfectly planned, Ryou can predict them. 

Standing before the white-haired angel, Ryou realises they're both the same height. The only visible difference between them is hair texture and - are their eyes differently coloured? Most of the stranger's hair falls into them. Ryou can't see their colour so clearly, but they look more green than his.

He feels something brush against his hands, an invisible object he can't see while his gaze is locked on the stranger's eyes. He instinctively grabs the object, which fits perfectly between his slender fingers

The stranger has given him his flower. Ryou sees this when he can finally look down, isn't paralysed by that gaze anymore. It's bright yellow, with curling petals and leaves sprouting from the sides. It looks so healthy, the roots still spiralling down from the end like vines from treetops. It's unlike any flower in this field, unlike any flower he's ever seen before.

"T-Thank you!"

He looks up to flash the stranger anther true smile, this time showing all his teeth. He smiles so brightly that it hurts his cheeks. Except the stranger is no longer standing in front of him. 

Ryou looks around, his thoughts getting more frenetic by the second. The stranger is gone?! How?? The only life left behind is that of the sunflowers. And Ryou, who holds his present close to his chest. The petals rustle lightly, tickling him. He holds it close as integral proof that the stranger exists - isn't just a fabrication to abate his loneliness.

He runs his hand across the tips of the petals, smooth and soft. Ruffling underneath his fingertip. They remind him of the stranger's hair. The texture he thinks of. Caressing each petal individually, Ryou begins the walk home.

*

Ryou unfortunately lives in the urban. He's always dreamt of moving to a rural cottage, sitting on a hill surrounded by a vast expanse of open grass. It'd be beside a forest and a sparkling lake in which the water twinkles in the sunlight and reflects a still moon under the dark sky. A light breeze would rustle the leaves of the nearby conifers. His house would sit quaintly in the centre of a lush field with pink tulips growing up its walls. 

For now, he lives in a large and bitterly exuberant flat in central Domino.

Ryou's father bought him this flat and that, unfortunately, makes him feel obliged to live there. At least until his degree is completed and he can afford a place of his own. Wiping his feet on the welcome mat, Ryou straightens it out parallel to the door, kicking it against the wall to straighten it out. Everything in his house is at right angles, a habit he picked up from his father.

"Hello?" He calls out to the silent house, empty of company. Floorboards creak with every footstep he makes. The wind whistles from the upper rafters, the only thing that breaks the silence. Ryou sits at his desk in his minimalist bedroom and goes on Google images to identify the flower the strange gave him. Finally, he finds an almost-replica.

_Yellow Orchid: flower. _

"Is that what you are?" Ryou twirls the dark stalk between his fingers, watching the petals floofing like a ballerina's skirt. "I didn't know..."

Taking a pen from the holder beside his notebook, he begins to write in tiny, swooping cursive.

_Dear Amane. _

_How are you and mother? _

While the sunflower field is the place he speaks with Amane, his mother isn't there. Writing to them both allows him to speak both of them at the same time, albeit through Amane since she is who he's closest to. Writing to her is like writing to her former self - preserved as she was before being ripped away in an instant. Tragically along with his innocence. 

_I have a flower with me, it's very pretty. A yellow orchid. I have it because_

_..._

"...someone gave it to me!" Ryou annunciates happily as he writes, feeling that thrilling tension he felt when he met the stranger once again. He continues to speak aloud while he writes.

"I met a person in the field! The first person I've ever seen there! Although I am a person and I visit, so it's not so shocking that someone else would," Ryou thinks to himself, suddenly embarrassed by how he pridefully thought the field _his. _Trying to protect it from others, when in fact it is owned by nobody, was foolish. Everyone may share it, even if a tiny area belongs to Amane.

_ I find it difficult to describe the stranger I met. The question of who he is remains unanswered - I didn't even get his name. Describing him is useless wirthout knowing who he is - or even what he is, if he's a person at all. But I will try to describe him for you, dear sister. You should know who I met; you deserve to know. _

Ryou struggles to find adjectives to describe the stranger. Perhaps none exist. He's about to give up until he has a small lightbulb moment. He scribbles hastily before this perfect word escapes him.

_Ethereal. _

"He was ethereal," he smiles, the word is perfect. 

Ryou realises the flower is still on his bedside table. He stares at it, imagining the rotten decayed corpse it will soon become if not preserved. So he grabs an old book from the shelf. A heavy encyclopaedia of history, one that belonged to his father. He places the flower between the pages and presses hard.

It will be preserved. A living memory of the stranger from the field.

*

"Ahhh he was ethereal," Bakura throws down his jacket. The blinds slam against the windowsill in the strong winds. He bangs the window closed and searches for the TV remote. Crashing onto the couch, he flicks mindlessly through the channels. Nothing interesting is on. No programme will ever be interesting to him again after such a surreal exchange. Art is ugly and distorted. Romanticism mundane and bland. All is depraved compared to the angel in the sunflower field.

"Huh? Who was ethereal?" Asks the child with long black hair, peeking over the back of the couch in admiration of the white-haired man sitting on said couch.

"The angel with the smile. The shy one - the one I met in the sunflower field,"

"You met an angel?!" the child squeals. 

"Angels don't exist, Mokuba," drawls the child's brown-haired brother. He sits in the armchair opposite Bakura, not bothering to take his eyes off the financial section of the newspaper. This simply isn't a worthy enough distraction. "Nobody cares about your hallucination of a sunflower field," 

"I care!" The child, Mokuba, retorts with annoyance. His annoyance disappears quickly, replaced by the trademark bright smile he wears as default. Any time he expresses negativity, it's snuffed out like a flame drowned in water. "Tell me about the angel!"

"He had a sparkle in his eyes that tells journeys beyond this realm. His smile is the smile of a pure cherub. His hair is white as snow. His eyes were melted chocolate pooled into a perfect mould. This skin was a milky alabaster, like a vase of finely crafted ceramic," 

What else can Bakura say about the person in the sunflower field? So much and so little. The detail he gave doesn't justify the pure beauty, yet it seems disingenuous to over-saturate his beauty with arbitrary adjectives. 

"He was someone who needs to find himself," Bakura sighs with contention, remembering how flustered and uncertain the angel was. Bakura stares at his open hand. His palm is empty; empty of his flower and empty of the name of the snow-white beauty from the field. "Maybe he was a long lost puppy," 

Bakura does miss his flower. He misses the stranger more, feeling nostalgic for someone he's never known.

"You need to stop picking up strays," scoffs the elder brother flicking the newspaper with a crashing crinkle that disturbs the shaken foundations of the building. 

"I don't do that!" Bakura defends weakly. _Maybe something I do..._

The brother then turns the page silently. "That little hobby of yours may get you into trouble,"

"He wasn't a little hobby! He was an angel worthy of the name Christ. An angel I say!" Bakura argues with fiery conviction. "Besides, you were once one of those strays, remember? Do-fucking-not tarnish your reputation of hypocrisy even more than you already have,"

The brown-haired man's eyes widen in slight surprise. He's impressed by the intensity of Bakura's passion for a complete stranger. "He must be something special if you're this interested," Bakura has a track record of being apathetic of other people. Any other people. "Maybe he _is_ an angel," 

"Oh, Mr Sceptic is listening to what I say for once?" Bakura's faint smile curls up at the edges, becoming a grin. The grin is then warped to an amused smirk. Not a malicious smirk, but relaxed and smug. "He was something special, regardless of what you think. I hope I run into him again," 

He doesn't doubt they will meet again. Whether destiny is involved or not (and Bakura doesn't believe in destiny) letting someone so precious slip between his fingers would be insane. And if he doesn't meet him again, Bakura will be more than disappointed. 

Bakura stands up, whisking on his trench coat. It's black and hugs his hips while hanging around his legs, designed with demon-winged tails. Bakura once again grabs his keys off the table. He casts a quick glance out the window: it's dark, cold. He needs a coat his time.

"Where are you going?" This strange development is enough to make the brown-haired man look up from the paper. This is a shocking development, Seto Kaiba spending a second in the real word and not consuming media. Bakura didn't think he had any scope outside the printed word. 

"He's gonna go find the stranger!" The child announces happily. Mokuba is ever the more perceptive of the two brothers. "Aren't you?"

"I'm simply going on a stroll. If we happen to run into each other..." he chuckles, shrugging slightly. "That'll be a happy accident,"


	2. Reaching the Destination

Ryou wakes to an intrusive knocking at his door and a muffled voice from the other side. His letterbox jingles, curious eyes peeking through. 

"Ryou? Are you home?" the voice asks in a concerned baritone, its user oblivious to the emotive quality his voice reveals. That voice has always made Ryou smile, slightly sadly but always with a devotion to its holder.

Ryou rolls over and checks his alarm clock: noon. Having slept in for the first time in a long time, he groans with passing waves of fatigue lasting only milliseconds. He rises to the song of birds chirping beyond his open window, from which a light breeze faintly blows his hair back. He takes a refreshing breath of fresh air. Every second he relaxes like this, his friend is left waiting. He slips on his rabbit-themed slippers and opens his front door, greeting Yami with a face twisted in confusion.

"Hi Yami - what's going on?" he doesn't usually take long to answer the door, and he's always home. Ryou prides himself on his punctuality and on looking put together. That's the worst part of this - it looks like he just woke up!

"Do you mind if I come in?" Yami asks, frowning lightly. He's a lot more emotive than he thinks. 

Ryou remembers with a spike of panic, the letter addressed to Amane that still sits on his desk. "Yes! I'm perfectly alright" smiling nervously, he steps in front of Yami. Hands on the edges of the door frame as if to barricade him out. A silent answer to Yami's question.

"Well uh..." Yami frowns, desperate to look past Ryou as what he's not-totally-clearly hiding. But he knows if it's something Ryou is hiding, it isn't his business. "I'm going out later, I'm meeting a man I got to know on the train yesterday. Would you like to come?"

"A man? Who?" Ryou asks, suddenly curious. He loves hearing about Yami's love life! Always amass with aesthetic dynamism and hearts and dramatic romance plots ending in passionate kisses on rooftops against the sunset. Yami's intense countenance and determinism attract the similarly dynamic and enigmatic. And his partners are always the most lovely people.

There's never jealousy.

"I can't tell you his name just yet," sadness fills his eyes, the turmoil of breaking your natural desires. He always tells Ryou about his partners. "He likes to maintain anonymity. But you can meet him in person! If you like,"

"I_ would _like!" Ryou agrees, it's been a long time since he's been out with Yami. Or any of his friends.

They make plans for this evening and when Yami leaves, Ryou falls back into bed. Sighing deeply, he stretches out like a cat waking from a nap. He loves cats! He acts just like them. But he likes bunnies just as much, and cats eat bunnies... 

But with motivation it takes less energy than he expects to get up, traipsing around his room to make himself semi-presentable to meet someone so elusive his very name is secret.

Ryou barely runs a brush through his hair and pulls on a more refined, older coat. He checks himself in the mirror between brushing his teeth and rinsing before he takes a quick drink of water from the bathroom sink - knowing he isn't supposed to do that - and heads out the door. But not forgetting to grab the notebook with the dried flower pressed between the pages.

*

Bakura Touzoku inspects every aspect of himself in the mirror, from the way his shirt sits across his shoulders to how poised each strand of hair is. His appearance is, at first glance, haphazard. But is in fact, a methodical application of time and product. Getting his piercing to stick out just the right way, the two locks that hand other side of his face equal in width. Backcombing it in careful sections, otherwise his hair would be flat and limp.

That guy - Ryou - had the most beautiful hair. Carried in the breeze like dancing flower petals. Yet provably even softer. The radiance of angel wings when the sunlight hit.

Today he perfects his appearance even more in anticipation of the most important stroll of his life. Past the sunflower field, past the corner with footprints in the soil where the angel stands for the second day in a row.

The angel sees him first. Turning around and regarding him with an innocent stare. "Oh, hi!" he was over, jogging up to Bakura with a pleasant smile. "I don't know if you'll remember me from yesterday. but you gave me a flower!"

Bakura blinks with surprise. Nobody has been this enthusiastic to talk to him in a long time. Ryou is an oasis in the desert. But will he turn out to be nothing more than a mirage?

"Of course I remember you," Bakura smiles, a gesture more difficult for him than most. His smile is a smirk or a grin. His resting face perceived as a scowl.

Ryou's smile is much sadder than his. His eyes as wet as Bakura's smile. "You still don't need to smile for other people,"

Ryou's huffy, annoyed frown is a more fitting expression on his face. A better one. More comfortable and just so cute.

"Actually I was just happy to see you again,"

"Oh, I- I'm sorry," Ryou's smile did look fake. But now he's annoyed. Of course, as Bakura always ruins his chances with interacting with others. He berates himself internally with curses of condemnation. _You idiot, how could you think like that?! _

But then another, more uplifting thought pops into his head. _I make him happy. _If he heard right (and he's sure he isn't) Ryou is indeed pleased to see him, pleasantly surprised by his company which sparks a jovial effervescence between them. The childlike skip of a revelation.

"Hehe, it's fine," Ryou tilts his head with a smile so cute and innocent it deserves to forever be preserved. In a heated moment of passion, Bakura reaches out and grabs Ryou'a hand.

* 

"I think we're going the same way - can we walk together?"

The stranger asks, neurotic energy buzzing between he and Ryou like static. He may as well be lit up like a Christmas tree! "Of course! I'd love to. But you know my name is Ryou - what's your name?" His smile fades so something soft, an endearing grin. Yet the jubilance remains. He grasps the stranger's hand as if to shake it.

"B-Bakura," the stranger stutters, heat of he moment passed and not so confident anymore.

They walk together, their footsteps falling into sync as they talk. "What were you doing in the field?" Ryou asks, curious as to why anyone but he would go there, or spend any time there. 

"I study Phytology, and never before have I seen a sunflower field that's entirely man-made! It must have bene planted over years, at least several years ago," Bakura recites, amazement in his voice. "Seeds grown to an entire field of yellow! It's incredible! But I couldn't find anything in the history books of Domino city about a deliberate sunflower field. But such a project couldn't have been done without organisational intervention, right?"

The stranger looks at Ryou with a manic vulnerability, desperately seeking affirmation to his claims as a botanist. Ryou doesn't know what do say, but the days of faking smiles to please has disappeared since he met Bakura. Bakura, who told him he could show his honest feelings at the time he needed to hear it the most. That he didn't need to fake a smile. 

"I planted that sunflower field," he states, very plainly. "My father and I," 

Bakura freezes in shock and for a second, Ryou is afraid he's overrun the stranger's hard-drive completely. Has Bakura's programming stopped working? A break in the code? His his hard-drive burnt out? 

"You... planted those flowers?" a gasp of disbelief hangs after that question, his voice unfamiliar to how he spoke before. As if he 's regressed to an age when childlike wonder overshadowed all.

"Yes," for some reason, Ryou feels ashamed. He feels like a liar even when he's being honest.

"That's amazing! You're really talented! Honestly, I..." _thought you were an angel, but you might be a God._ "I'm so impressed!"

Unable to respond once again, Ryou can only curl up in on himself. Anxious, humble, his cheeks flare with embarrassment at the compliment, Never before has he been addressed with such adorative passion.

The pair meander along the road to the train station, where Ryou awaits the arrival of his train to the address Yami gave him. He turns to wave Bakura goodbye, maybe give him a hug if he'd be comfortable with it. But Bakura is waiting for the exact same train, and both eye one another with the tense and awkward question of: _Do I... mention this? _

"I'm going to meet my friend" Ryou explains with an apologetic smile, one that's trying entirely not to look apologetic just in case Bakura had no intention of coming with him, and this is a perfectly innocent mistake.

"Oh, I'm going home - this is my train," Bakura chuckles back, and Ryou too, realising their misunderstanding.

They talk until the placard overhead pings by the doors, approaching the next station. Bakura stands up, grinning down at Ryou. "This is my stop, I will see you later," he glowing letters read _Downtown Domino_. The train is trapped by roaring tunnel, compressing it into a claustrophobic crawlspace.

"Downtown..." Ryou stares at the screen, not quite connecting it in his mind. Downtown is also his stop, the stop Yami directed him to. Where that nameless date of his lives.

The train slowly rolls to their stop, signalling the end of a silent ride. Ryou stands up, Bakura stands up too, and again they exchange and entirely awkward glance. Both decide to stay quiet about it. 

The journey becomes even stranger when they step down from the doors and walk the same way. Up the same lane, down the same street. Same staircase, both in reticence so say anything. Absolute stunned silence consumes the street when they turn into the same driveway.

Ryou looks up at the apartment, deliberately dissociating from the weirdness that goes beyond coincidence. The building is so crumbled to ruins he wonders if Yami mistook the address. Perhaps he misread it, so he pulls out his phone to check his messages, until he hears a reverberating knock on the first-floor window. Through the tinted glass, Yami is waving at him from inside. 

Ryou fellows Bakura through the mangled garden of dead and decaying plants - didn't he say he's a botanist? - approaching the door with paint peeling, split by eyes of bare wood. Bakura doesn't knock, just opens the door with a creak, turning back. "You're coming in then, I suppose?"

"I- yes, I am," 

The door closes behind them, shadowing Ryou in darkness. The only light left is the faint natural gleam from the window above the staircase. He traverses bare floors without carpet or linoleum, every step feels like the floorboards are about to snap under the weight of a normal human. Yet Bakura is running ahead, wearing heavy boots. 

Ryou follows him to the door of one apartment, just as naked as the front door and in need of repainting. It opens into a hallway that's empty of everything - it doesn't even have wallpaper, instead the drywall is exposed. 

Arriving in the living room, Ryou is relieved to see a couch and an armchair. However, his relief is short-lived when he sees the seat is torn in two, white fluff spilling from the deep gash.

Yami sits on the armchair, on the armrest sits a taller man crossing his slender legs, a gaze like freezing water fixated intensely on Ryou. Then the same steely look shifts to Bakura. 

"Bakura, who's he?"

"My best friend - this is Ryou!" Yami answers instead, running up to Ryou and pulling him into a hug. Taking his hand softly, he leads him back to the hallway and closes the door. 

They stand in the corridor, stuffy air catching in Ryou's throat. Yami stares at him with a slightly worried frown, until his breathing falls long and slow.

"I know a lot is going on, it's hurting your brain. Mine too," he sighs. "But I must ask, how do you know Bakura?"

The two meetings took only 5 minutes, but Ryou feels the story of their meeting is too complicated to explain right now, without making the remaining residents suspicious. "I met him on the way here, no idea he was your date's... roommate?"

Yami nods at the answer. So Bakura is his date's roommate - this goes way beyond coincidence! "Let's go back, he might be suspicious," 

With a final sharp, whispering breath, Ryou steps with a façade of confidence back into the living room, ready to face both Bakura and the date, who's too intimidating to speak to. 

Bakura's in the corner with the date now, leaning across he chair and whispering into his ear. When he sees Ryou staring he stands, approaching with a calm restraint, holding something back. 

"We should give them some privacy," he states quickly, dragging Ryou back to the corridor. 


	3. Drowning in Red

Paintings of flowers adorn the walls, depicted with precision and block shapes. A flurry of pastel colours layered harmoniously to display a field of orchids, delicate lines of deep brown and blue - brightened hues of each colour. The flowers themselves vary in species and colour nearer the corners, explosions of blossoming colour depicting a spring morning at dawn. Ryou stares around the room in awe, absorbing the beauty that traps his mind in the captivating loss of agency.

"It's gorgeous!" he gasps, running his fingers lightly across the painting, feeling harsh brushstrokes under his fingers. The image fills him with a warmth that grows from his chest to the rest of his body. Making him smile not just in appearance, but internally. The mural coating Bakura's bedroom walls brightens his very soul. A second of true happiness that he forgot was possible, lies smothered under generous layers of paint. "Did you paint this?!"

Bakura smiles, nodding in gentle agreement. He sits on his bed and looks around his room, reminded of his pursuit of artistic beauty. It seems mundane to him, sleeping here everyday and seeing the mural. The magic of his painting is rekindled by the awe of the newcomer. "I seek to find the beauty in everything. In some subjects, I don't need to search at all. Only mirror the obvious on a canvas," his eyes fix decidedly on Ryou for a moment, then back to his painting. Decidedly, a smile spreads across his face, eyes alight with a rekindled fire.

Casually, he reaches over for his sketchbook, settling it on his lap. Pulling the pencil from the coil at the top, he begins to sketch. Eyes flickering up and back discreetly, capturing the candid picture.

"Can you see the beauty in everything? Really everything, I mean?" _Even someone like me? _Ryou whimpers in worry, curling in on himself.

To answer his question, Bakura turns his sketchbook around. "It's only light, and done quickly, but I'll make it better..." he hands it over for Ryou to study.

A delicate pencil sketch, so accurately proportioned it could be a headshot, of Ryou stares back at him. His instantaneous expression captured perfectly like a reflection in a mirror. Painting Ryou's eyes are fluttered closed in a blink, eyelashes slightly brushing his overhanging bangs. The drawing textures his hair with depth to its fluffiness. His cupid-bow lips are slightly parted, revealing a little blop of his tongue like goofy puppy. The expression is subtle but its enthusiasm intense. 

It's painted not as if by a friend, but by a lover. 

"This..." shock, existential anxiety buzzes around his mind. He cannot process the ability to take an expression like that in real time and with such precise expertise and replicate it with perfection using simple graphite. He almost suspects Bakura of having observed his expressions much more, secretly, illicitly, and building the sketch for a long time. It's the only possible explanation for such a fluent and confident piece. "Beautiful, Bakura,"

"Is everything in this room beautiful?" he chuckles, making Ryou's ears turn pink with embarrassment.

"I-I mean..."

"Just kidding," his tongue, strangely long, sticks out of his mouth. It seems like the perfect expression for him, one Ryou would capture on paper of he could. Then Bakura would be impressed with him instead, because Ryou captured an image much more elegant than his own. Bakura, the paragon of attractive qualities, an elusive being it's not far-fetched to claim is celestial.

"Hey, stop dissociating, you'll miss the present!" Bakura snaps his fingers in front of Ryou's face, wrenching him from his hypotheticals to back here, to what's happening right in front of his face. "You've been stuck in your head since I met you. I wish I could read your thoughts and paint them. Climb into your head and capture them on a canvas. They must be so intricate, with how many you have,"

"Can I tell you what they are?"

People lie when they explain their thoughts to others. Omit things out of shame or fear. But even a lie scattered in truth is better than nothing. Bakura leans back against the wall which his bed is against, patting the duvet beside him. "Sit with me, if you want. And I'd love to hear everything you feel comfortable to tell me!"

*

A soft knock on the door is drowned out almost entirely by their animated conversation. The men explore the recesses of one another's mind. Ryou reveals that his sister Amane was killed in a car crash. And his father was a man at one with the environment and culture and history, but that was his only good trait. Otherwise Ryou's father was greedy, his actions immoral at best. But Ryou's letters to Amane are not once mentioned.

Bakura doesn't mention his own life at all. He says barely anything, only listening with intent to Ryou, providing the occasional commentary that Ryou uses to analyse Bakura's elusive sense of self. 

"Hello?" Yami's voice is calm, only slightly laced with worry. He pushes the door ajar, unaware of the conversation of anything else occurring between his friend and the stranger. 

Both Ryou and Bakura look up with faces that betray their level of guilt, making Yami tense with second-hand embarrassment. The sight of the white-haired reflections sitting on Bakura's bed, close enough to feel the warmth of the other's skin, misinforms him with its intimacy. All manner of unwelcome but admittedly not unpleasant thoughts flood his mind. 

Yet both are fully dressed and without any change in appearance since they came upstairs.

"I'm heading home," Yami jerks his thumb pointing downstairs. "Are you coming?" 

"Oh, yes, sure!" Ryou grabs his jacket from the end of the bed, sliding his arms into it. Trepidation overcomes him when he realises that Bakura could never like him now that the beauty he thought Ryou held has been tainted with the impurities of his past. "Goodbye Bakura,"

The man is caught of guard for a second, gazing into chocolate pools of fear. His thin lips spread wide, head tilting up to place a small kiss on Ryou's lips. He feels the flutter of soft cloud form their texture. They part, and Bakura wraps his arm around his shoulders, drawing his lithe body closer. "Dare I hope to see you again? Perhaps on a date?"

"A-A date?! You want to...? Yes, I'd love to see you again," Ryou admits, cheeks glowing red as if wandering the Arctic. How can Bakura possibly want to see him again, still be able to look at him, even with the revelation of what his life has been like, and what kind of person he is? 

"Great!" Bakura pulls out his phone and they swap numbers, promising to text Ryou tonight. 

Once the manor door is closed, and Ryou and Yami surpass the iron gates and reach the streets, Yami smiles deviously, staring at Ryou with confidence. Sheepish eyes glance back at him above the latter's blushing cheeks. "I don't mean to be invasive, but..."

"Yes, I like Bakura," Ryou grins back to he sound of delighted squeals.

"That's fantastic!" Yami hugs him before taking his hand, swinging their arms between them. They act like jovial children once more. "What's he like?"

"Despondent," Ryou admits, hair fluttering back in the light breeze. "But considerate. And talented, and romantic... it's like a fairy God-bee landed on him, then on me, bonding us forever in an asexual enchantment,"

"Pollination is sexual," Yami chuckles.

"Oh! Then it's like Satan, Lord's fallen angel," Ryou laughs. "He's so pleasing, he's tempted our bodies and minds to fall in love. Bakura could drag me down to Hell with him - I'd sacrifice heaven for Bakura," 

Ryou sees Yami's confusion. He decides to change the subject. "What about the brown-haired man? Kaiba?"

"I like him... _like-_like him. He's cold and sharp, like a broken blade of ice," Yami frowns at Ryou's worried expression. "But charismatic, caring in his own way. Underneath that brittle exterior is a gemstone personality worth an exorbitant amount of emotional riches. Like a pearl trapped in a clam I need to pry open. He's great, but there are so many walls to break down," 

"Thanks, I like comparisons," Ryou smiles. They help him understand people better. "He seems nice, a good fit for you. You seem happier," 

He also seems a lot like Bakura. Ryou wonders how they know one another. 

"I am happier!" Yami answers affirmatively. But perhaps he's just less lonely.

*

"I'm coming in,"

Bakura knocks a few times and when no objection sounds, he enters the bathroom. It's one of the cleanest rooms in the house thanks to Kaiba being a fucking germaphobe. A crisp porcelain bath sits against the wall adorned with stainless steel rose accents sprayed pink - Bakura's own artistic addition. Inside the rub lies Seto Kaiba. His roommate is relaxing under water stained red and surrounded by alight gingerbread candles, flames flickering when Bakura sits on the edge of the bath. It has a macabre theme of Christmas.

"Bath bomb?" Bakura stares down into the murky crimson. 

"You're very invasive," Kaiba scoffs. "But yes, it's a bath bomb. No need to worry yourself - It isn't blood,"

"You're a hard person not to worry about,"

Bakura leans over the sink, picking his sky blue toothbrush from the holder. He drenches it in too much toothpaste and brushes his teeth, letting it foam and dribble into the sink.

"You use an insane amount of that stuff," Kaiba clambers out, ripping the plug from the drain. He sits on the edge nonchalantly, arms outstretched. Palms resting on his knees, back bent.

"Yet you can afford to waste your money on bath bombs and gingerbread candles,"

Kaiba rolls his eyes, wandering around collecting his clothes, avoiding the mirror. "And on you living here, eating my food, not working. All for free. And painting - which I support," 

"I told you before, just say the word and I'll disappear - I can be gone by tomorrow," Bakura watches Kaiba through the mirror. He tilts his head with a broken grin. "But if you keep making these impulse purchases. All-"

Bakura takes a moment to count the candles.

"- thirteen of them, then saving up for surgery will remain a distant impossibility!"

Hesitation, flashes in Kaiba's eyes. Bakura not only struck a nerve, but destroyed the entire system under the blow of insensitive inconsideration. Kaiba winces, shocked still for a slight moment. Before all emotion and colour drains for his face, mouth pulled into a strained line. 

He rips his towel from the wall and wraps it arounds his chest quickly, hiding behind its scratchy fabric. Bakura steps back, equally shocked. Never has Kaiba covered himself in front of Bakura, there's too much trust between them for that.

"I-I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking," streams of terror shoot through his body, cold rushes of icy fog. The way Kaiba looks at him pierces icicles through his heart. 

"Don't apologise for the truth, you're right," Kaiba slips on his overly fluffy bedshoes (he's Seto Kaiba, who doesn't simply call them 'slippers') and retires to his bedroom, a room equally torn down and rotting with mold as the rest of the house crumbling under the weight of time. 

The door of the room consists of wooden planks nailed together and mounted of old, creaky and uneven hinges. It slams, a poster of the Blue-Eyes White Dragon flapping slightly in the air Kaiba has disturbed. The poster has a few tears but is less destroyed than the bedroom door. Kaiba's devotion to the fictional dragon means the poster is kept in pristine condition. 

Bakura watches the door close, trying to glimpse into Kaiba's soul through the faintest slits between the planks of wood. He wants to see into the man's mind, know exactly how to make this right. He recognises the hurt his insinuation caused. Of course he sees nothing, and his gaze lingers for a second too long.

Bakura retreats to his own bedroom. He stares at the back wall, the complex painting. Reflective of his accomplishments, the flowers mock him with their perfection. 

Bakura wrenches open his cupboard door and pulls out everything. Everything until he finds what he's looking for and even then the shelves aren't bare enough.

The thin metal wire of the paint can slices through his fingers as he throws the heavy tin his room. Crimson paint splatters on everything. Flying elegantly as a dancing ballerina showcasing a confident performance. Trails of blood red drip down the wall, trickling ever so slowly. Drip. _Drip. _The walls are drenched in Bakura's scarlet fury. Hell flows from within his torturous mind and descends on his bedroom. Words repeat themselves in his mind, brainwashing him into a spiralling black void he never really escaped from.

_Everything. _

_Sin. _

_Demonic. _

_"You're demonic!"_

_I'm demonic. _

"I'm demonic,"


End file.
